Boom: California greens try, fail to pass a fracking moratorium

posted at 1:21 pm on June 11, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

I somehow managed to completely miss this from a couple of weeks back, but it’s an especially interesting and kind of epic piece of news from a state that’s home to some of the largest, most cultishly do-or-die green interests in the country and a legislature currently dominated by a liberal supermajority. When I first caught wind of the fact that Californians were getting ready to introduce a proposal to ban fracking, I suspected that they would definitely have a fighting chance of getting the thing passed — but it turns out that enough of California’s legislators are at least somewhat tuned in to the economic realities of hydraulic fracturing, and enough so to thwart the often overwhelming clout of the state’s many eco-lobbies.

Some quick background: At the moment, California is the fourth-largest oil producing state in the union, but production has been steadily declining while the state has been dropping plenty of cash on forcibly integrating wind and solar into their energy grid. California is also sittin’ pretty atop the as-yet untapped Monterey Shale, a formation estimated to be several times bigger than the Bakken Shale formation currently delivering an economic boom to North Dakota. The oil and gas industry isn’t quite there yet with the technology that would make extracting the formation’s resources economically worthwhile, but with the innovative leaps and bounds hydraulic fracturing has accomplished in just a few short years, it’s only a matter of time — and a moratorium would preemptively shut the whole thing down.

While wealthy and self-fancied green Californian districts seem all too ready to cut the opportunities off at the knees, poorer regions were noticeably less keen on a potential fracking ban. The WSJ knows what’s up:

Democratic leaders brought their fracking moratorium bill to the Assembly floor last week, and their rank and file revolted. The bill lost 37-24, with 12 Democrats joining 25 Republicans to defeat it. Another 18 Democrats abstained, and it’s a good bet they were “no” votes who didn’t want to publicly cross their leadership. This was a rare rout of the Sierra Club and other greens that denounce “fracking” for polluting water and inducing earthquakes, among other horrors. They blamed the oil and gas lobby, but that hides the real story.

The votes for the fracking ban came mainly from the wealthy, mostly white Democratic coastal districts—San Francisco, Santa Monica and Malibu. Opponents were mostly from central California, areas that are poor and minority, with rates of unemployment of 12% or more. …

A study by University of Southern California scientists funded by the oil industry estimates fracking would deliver 500,000 jobs over the next several years and $24.6 billion in state and local tax revenue in 2020 alone. If those numbers are even close to accurate, drilling could be a financial salvation for a state that has $167.9 billion in long-term liabilities…

Expect to continue to see the eco-zealots continuing to work their tailfeathers off impose deliberately onerous regulations on hydraulic fracturing and to sue oil and gas companies for various offenses, real or imagined, while they continue to completely ignore that their state is awash with debt and joblessness and the fact that the natural gas that could come out of increased hydraulic fracturing is one of the most effective and economical methods we’ve yet discovered for reducing the carbon emissions they claim to loathe so much.

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If those numbers are even close to accurate, drilling could be a financial salvation for a state that has $167.9 billion in long-term liabilities…

Oh! I’m sure that Californians will willingly pay a little more in taxes to help the situation. What with the low tax rate they enjoy. It is worth it for their world class schools, efficient government, low crime rates, and economic opportunity. /

Seriously, I lived in the LA area twice. At this point in my life you couldn’t pay me enough to compel me to go back to that awful place.

A study by University of Southern California scientists funded by the oil industry estimates fracking would deliver 500,000 jobs over the next several years and $24.6 billion in state and local tax revenue in 2020 alone.

Erikas’ last paragraph pretty much reveals the reality of what will happen. The Enviro-Nazis in CA have four decades of experience in stalling, wearing their opponents down and depleting their bank accounts through litigation and regulation. It also doesn’t hurt when the rogue EPA has your back. It will be more like 2050 if we’re lucky, and by then the state will be broke.

There has to be a way to force the Left to live with the consequences of its policy presences. If they hate fossil fuels they should be prohibited from using them and any energy reduced from them. They should be denied the use if plastics, rubber, pharmaceuticals, and many more oil derivatives.

They should be forced to drive battery powered cars, without public subsidies.

If they vote for Democrats then it is they who should have to pay higher taxes for the wealth transfers they support.

Sad to see how lefty the National Geotool Magazine has become…isn’t it.
Loved it as a kid.
workingclass artist on June 11, 2013 at 1:57 PM

Amen, ditto! Got a copy recently from my mother, and it’s astounding the lengths they go to to tie every subject and article to global warming this, climate change that. Every animal and plant is ‘endangered’ or ‘threatened’ or is ‘seeing its habitat impacted’ by bad ol’ man and his activities.
BTW, same thing for the Smithsonian magazine. Would not pay a dime for either now. Pics are still pretty, but not worth the propaganda.

It’s journalism in general. I stopped my Sports Illustrated subscription way back when (1990s sometime) they put some Miami QB on the cover knee deep in water on a football field, because you know, that’s going to happen. And if we only throw $16 trillion at it, then the sun will stop causing the climate to change. Of course, we all have to stop driving and live in LED lighted high rises.

None of this is being reported here. Sort of like in the Chicago murder frenzy. Not reported locally, or just given one little sound bite. Then its on to buckets of puppies and kittens tra la la all the way home.

Democratic leaders brought their fracking moratorium bill to the Assembly floor last week, and their rank and file revolted. The bill lost 37-24, with 12 Democrats joining 25 Republicans to defeat it. Another 18 Democrats abstained, and it’s a good bet they were “no” votes who didn’t want to publicly cross their leadership. This was a rare rout of the Sierra Club and other greens that denounce “fracking” for polluting water and inducing earthquakes, among other horrors.

I’m wondering how many of those Dems are already receiving anonymous death threats. Keep in mind the sort of fanatics you’re dealing with here- Earth First!, Animal Liberation Front, etc.

Like most “enlightened progressives”, they believe that There Is Only One Right Way – theirs. And anyone who doesn’t agree with them 110% is The Enemy, and Irredeemably Evil into the bargain.

Since they’re used to fawning support and Kadavergehorsam from the Dems, can you imagine their reaction to this slap in the face?

Sheer apostasy, in their “superior” minds.

My guess is that the Albigensian Crusade, aka the Cathar Suppression, isn’t in it by comparison to what they’re visualizing right now.

Look for hit lists on their internal weblinks any time now, if they aren’t there already. (Probably better secured than East Anglia’s by now, I suspect.)

I commend you for your careful reporter/source use of fracturing and fracking. It distinguishes you as one that knows the subject matter from those that do not – or those who are too lazy to report things as facts, choosing instead to report a position.